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“Requiring faith-based organizations to be religious only in the ways the government permits overthrows the pluralism that has been a hallmark of American public life. The administration’s rigid secular approach subverts religious liberty to the whims of governmental authority. Under the policy, a church dedicated to public service is no longer allowed to be a church.”
– Rep. Bob Turner, who represents my district in New York City.
[...] passionate, articulate (and funny) people have argued that the new rule from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services requiring [...]
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“Requiring faith-based organizations to be religious only in the ways the government permits overthrows the pluralism that has been a hallmark of American public life.”
That would only be strictly true if the state was obliged to, say, prevent blood transfusions being offered by 7th Day Adventist hospitals, prevent psychiatric treatments by Scientologists, allow polygamy by Mormons of old, or allow abortions by those Christian denominations which happen to approve of them.
The state has an obligation to intervene, even against religious freedom, where the Common Good genuinely requires it to uphold the rights and dignity of the human person.
God Bless
birth control anf abortion have nothing to do with the common good.
Anyway you miss the pont. This is about forcing religous institutions to provide coverage against their coscience. Any Catholic who wants birth control and, alas, an abortion can still do so on the open free market.
You’re joking, right? This HHS issue has nothing to do with the common good, or the Constitution of the United States for that matter. We are in the world. But, we are not of the world. The world does not like us because we speak Truth and the world crucified our God for that. Speaking the truth in love convicts people in their hearts. So, when they see/hear/experience us, they want to silence us or worse in order to dilute our beliefs and make us disappear. That won’t work. It will only make us bolder to uphold and defend the Truth.
My heart is warmed by the words on the Facebook page of the Stanley Cup winning Boston Bruins’ goalie Tim Thomas:
“I Stand with the Catholics in the fight for Religious Freedom.
‘In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.’
– by Martin Niemöller, prominent German anti-Nazi theologian and Lutheran pastor, best known as the author of the poem First they came….”
You can support him in this by going to his page and “liking” this quote:
http://www.facebook.com/TimThomasOfficialPage?sk=wall&filter=2
Chris,
On this blog and elsewhere you argue that the administration’s actions reflect the considered judgment of an independent medical group. On that basis, you suggest it was a decision for what is arguably the common good. But Kathryn Jean Lopez at National Review has posted a list of some of the people who made the call in the first place, and, not surprisingly, “The vast majority of the committee members demonstrate a more than casual commitment to the goals of the abortion lobby. ”
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/290664/abortion-rights-advocates-who-compiled-hhs-mandate-kathryn-jean-lopez
It seems entirely reasonable to conclude that the mandate was a political decision from the get-go, one that now seems to have backfired.
Thank you for that link, Ron. Very telling.